Just stand there and watch me burn
by abbcat1123
Summary: that's alright because i like that way it hurts. What happened to the campers during the second book.Cabin seven, Liz Pertson tells the story. Full summary/title inside. T for later chapters.It'll probably get violent. I've only read the second book.
1. Prologue

**Just stand there and watch me burn,**

**That's alright because I like the way it hurts.**

o.O

For ten day's Percy was gone, and on the eleventh day he came back. It was different this time though, Clarisse held the glory for the quest, and it brought Thalia back. It certainly rocked the campers' world, but what did they go through just to survive that long? Maybe this will give you some perspective.

O.o

Nobody really knew when it had happened. Some say it happened over night, and others say that it had happened a long time ago and the poison was slow-acting. Me? I think that all that matters is that Thalia's tree was poisoned, not how it happened, and that we were all in deep shit.

o.O

My name is Liz Pertson, and I'm a daughter of Apollo. I'm a year round camper, and this is the story of what the campers here at camp went through while Clarisse was on her quest.

Everybody thought that it was bad last time, what with the tension growing, and campers picking sides, but when that happened we were our own enemies. Now we have to worry about the monsters that hunt us like prey. Nobody sleeps well, all of the cabins are spread thin, and we know that it can only get worse.

Chiron being fired was the last straw for most parents. They kept their kids away from camp, and not only did that mean we didn't get to see our family, but it meant that the cavalry wouldn't be arriving anytime soon. Then Percy got here. He saved the camp from Hephaestus's mechanical bulls with Annabeth and his half-brother, Tyson the Cyclops.

With Tantalus as the new activities director people were on edge. Especially when he announced the reinstitution of chariot racing. My brother, Paul (named for dear old dad), politely informed Tantalus that the races had been stopped because of three deaths and twenty-six mutilations, but he would have none of it.

My siblings and I helped keep up border patrol even though it had been forbidden, and we healed anyone who had been injured. Thank the Gods that nobody has died… yet.

O.o

Just for reference here's a list of cabins and how many people are in them. I'll give names if I can.

**Zeus' cabin**: empty.

**Hera's cabin**: empty

**Poseidon's cabin**: One

Percy Jackson - Counselor and every other position available. 13 years old.

**Hermes' cabin**: ? Does anybody actually know?

Connor/Travis Stoll - counselor(s) Age - Not sure I want to know.

**Artemis' cabin**: empty

**Demeter's Cabin**: four

Daniel Hoffer - counselor - Age: sixteen (impressive for a demigod)

Zane Nielson - second in command - Age: thirteen

Lisa Tenor - camper - Age: twelve

Chris Groody - Junior camper - Age: nine

**Apollo's Cabin**: seven

Liz Pertson (me): Counselor - Age: fifteen

Paul Dean: second in command - Age: fourteen

Missy Dean (named after Artemis) - camper - Age: fourteen

Kelly Johnson - camper - Age: eleven

Kenny Brock - camper - Age: ten

Zack Jennings - Junior camper - Age: eight

Claudia Donovan (if you get the reference you get cookies) - Junior camper - Age: seven

**Hephaestus' Cabin**: three

Charles Beckondorf - counselor - Age: fourteen

Bryce Sheen - second in command - Age: twelve

Leya Neel - camper - Age: ten

**Ares' Cabin**: four

Jenson Dere - Counselor - Age: fourteen

Clarisse - second in command - Age: thirteen

Keneth Dare - camper - Age: twelve

Shay Temp - Camper - Age: eleven

**Aphrodite's cabin**: Three

Mathew Spen - Counselor - Age: sixteen

Salina Beauregard - second in command - Age: thirteen

Sasha Lee - camper - Age: fourteen

**Athena's cabin: three**

**Annabeth Chase - counselor - Age: thirteen **

**Don Brown - second in command - Age fifteen**

**Scotty Shale - Junior camper - Age: Nine**

**o.O**

**A/N Ok so I just had to write this. It's during the second book incase you didn't know. My parrot will eat any flames so, yeah. If you get the references I made with the first name Zane you get a hug. If you get the reference with the last name Nielson you get pie. You get a cookie if you know the Claudia Donovan reference.**


	2. Chapter one: Day one

Chapter one: day one

I woke with a start, and found that I was the first person awake in the cabin. I had been having nightmares again. Who wouldn't? Our camp has been turned into a battle ground, and, on top of that, we've been forbidden to do anything about it. That's why all of the campers that had been allowed to stay here by their parents were meeting together in the courtyard this afternoon. I sincerely hoped that the meeting would show results because we were all exhausted, mad, and scared, but mostly exhausted and mad.

From across the room I heard a yawn, and then my brother said, "How long have you been up? You should have woken me." Paul might be a slacker and a music Junkie, but he took his duties as second in command very seriously. Then he stood up and yelled, "Waky, waky, eggs and backy!"

Everybody but Zack and Claudia got up. The two Junior campers pulled the pillows over their head and wriggled farther down into the blankets. "Too early" moaned Zack.

Claudia, who was the youngest, just wailed, "NO!"

I nodded to Missy, and Paul nodded to Kelly. Missy and I walked over to Zack's bed, I grabbed his arms and Missy his feet, and then we swung him up out of bed yelling, "Up you get!", and then we set him down on the floor with a thump. Paul and Kelly did the same thing to Claudia.

It was strange, really. We could go through our daily morning routine and laugh and mess around, but there was a tension hovering just below the surface that made everything seem forced. The older campers hid it well but Zack was brooding in a corner, which was weird because he was usually so happy, and Claudia looked as if she were about to cry.

"This meeting," started Kelly hesitantly as we sat around the breakfast table. "What are we doing? What's it for?"

As soon as the questions left her lips we were shushing her frantically. "We'll just see how it runs it's course" I whispered to her.

"We can't let Tantalus find out" whispered Missy. We all glanced up to the table at the head of the dining pavilion wear Dionysus, his sons, and Tantalus were sitting. The old creep was desperately trying to catch a piece of bacon. Everybody gave a set nod and then went back to there breakfast.

Later that afternoon, when there was an hour set aside for all of the campers to have some free time, and everybody gathered in the courtyard in the middle of the cabins. We all sat in a huge circle, and nobody spoke. Nobody knew where to start, so I did. "We need to continue the border control" I said quietly.

"How?" asked Salina Beauregard.

Everybody looked at me and I just stared back, unsure of what to say. It wasn't the attention that bothered me because I got that a lot, it was the type of attention. They all expected me to come up with a plan and I didn't know what to say. I guess that that could be my fatal flaw. I was terrible under pressure.

Thankfully, Don Brown, a son of Athena, came to my rescue by saying, "This should be a collaboration, we can't expect any of us to single-handedly come up with a plan to protect the entire camp." There was a murmur of agreement and then you could almost hear the gears turning in everybody's heads.

"The Hermes cabin could do a stealth patrol around the border of camp, and we can work out a schedule of shifts so we get enough sleep" suggested Travis Stoll.

Beckondorf's loud voice carried across the courtyard as he said, "We'll have no problem crafting weapons and shields for everybody, and we can stockpile things like explosives."

These two ideas got everybody moving and by the time lunch rolled around we had some sort of plan. Hermes' kids would run a stealth patrol during the night, and they would take shifts to make sure the lack of sleep wasn't suspicious. Hephaestus's kids would make as many weapons, shields, and explosives as they could. They would stockpile everything that wasn't being used, and keep it hidden from Mr. D and Tantalus. The kids that were left in Athena's cabin would work out battle strategies that we could practice, and they would keep up communication between the different cabins using any owls in the area. The kids in the Ares cabin would be the front lines in most of the battles, unless it was determined that stealth was a better option, and then a decision would be made on how to handle the situation. Demeter and Dionysus's children would be in charge of keeping the adults and harpies off of our backs and getting us nectar and ambrosia when we needed it. We, the Apollo cabin, would function a snipers, hidden in the trees where we would soon hide arrows and bows, and we would also be the medical support. It was risky but we couldn't just let the camp go unprotected.

That night, after all of the training and practice drills we had gone through, I stumbled into the cabin and leaned in front of the mirror in the bathroom. I guess some people might have described me as intimidating, but I'm not sure. I had the same blond hair, green eyes, and wiry build that my siblings had, but I had blue highlights and purple lowlights in my hair, I wore dark eyeliner, and I had a lip piercing, a nose piercing, an eyebrow piercing, and I had seven or eight earrings on each ear. Underneath the makeup, though, I'm scared. The place I call home is being threatened, and I'm not sure if there's anything that we can do about it. Having a plan and actually acting it out were two different things. I stepped out of the bathroom and called lights out. It didn't matter though, every body but Paul was asleep.

"Do you think it'll work?" he asked me quietly. His mood seemed so dark, and I knew he had been acting light hearted to protect the other campers.

"I don't know" I answered. "I really don't know. There are so many junior campers this year, and the attacks have been getting worse and worse. I just hope that they get the fleece back here soon."

Paul nodded, and then he asked a question that had been hovering at the back of my mind too. "Do you think Percy or Clarisse will bring back the fleece?"

"I don't know. I don't really care. I just want them all to get back alive, even Clarisse." At that Paul nodded and went to sleep.

I followed his example, but I woke up in the middle of the night. I glanced at the clock and got up. Travis Stoll would be on patrol, and I wanted to talk to someone. I had fallen asleep in my jeans and T-shirt so I just got up and walked out of the cabin. I was careful so that the Harpies wouldn't notice me, and I practically sprinted to the border of camp. I just caught Travis as he passed Thallia's tree.

We walked together in silence for a while, but he broke it by saying, "Why are you out so late?"

"I wanted somebody to talk to" I said sheepishly. I mentally kicked myself for being such a child.

"So talk" he muttered. This Travis was so different from the trouble maker I knew during the day, and I couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with Connor not being there.

"How do you feel about this?" I asked him.

"Feel about what?" he arched an eyebrow and looked at me.

"The state the camp is in."

"Oh" he seemed to hesitate. "I know Zeus is angry about the tree being poisoned, but if there was ever a time we needed our parents help, it would be now."

"I know how you feel" I murmured. "Sometime's I can't help but be angry at my dad. Why would he just leave us to fight like this? But then I wonder if that's how it started with Luke, and I tell myself that, if it weren't for him, I would never have been born."

"I guess that's a good thing to think" He grinned at me and clasped his hands behind his back. "The things is though, we're all related to each other here at camp, and that makes it so hard to take anybody seriously sometimes, or you just can't help being mad."

"Hey, we wouldn't be a family if there wasn't some sort of chaos." And then, as an afterthought, I added, "Other than you and your cohorts."

He laughed at that one. "Go back to your cabin now, it'll be bad enough if one of us is caught out after curfew."

"Let me take the rest of the shift" I offered. It was really late at night, and Travis must've been tired.

"No" he said stubbornly. "It's my job" and with that he shoved me down the hill that we had come back to. I waved and then ran back to the cabin. There was a scary moment when I was running from the Harpies but I got back into that cabin just in time. I slumped into the bed, and, in less than a minute, I was dead to the world.


End file.
